


When The World Doesn't End

by Pixie



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-21 00:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 9,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/893777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pixie/pseuds/Pixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newton's been working to a deadline, one he never expected to live past. Hermann can't stop thinking about the end of the world. What do you do when the apocalypse is cancelled, and you're left behind?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first few weeks are great – fantastic, even. Newton pursues avenues of research he hadn't had time to before, studying the minute details of every scrap of kaiju he can get his hands on. Having Hannibal as a contact has opened new worlds to him, and he churns out paper after paper, making connections faster than he can type. And as he does, Hermann watches. There's still the faint link between them left over from their desperate drift, and he can feel the burning of Newton's mind echoing in his own head. It sparks constantly, thoughts buzzing endlessly, never stopping – not for food, for sleep, not for anything. He squeezes the bridge of his nose out of irritation, sighs noisily and begins to carefully collect his things. He's reached the door before the buzzing stops, punctuated by a shout.  
“Hey, Hermann! Where are you off to?”  
“I'm leaving,” he says, somewhat more brusquely than he intends. “There's very little I can do out here that I cannot do in England.” Newton's face falls.  
“Oh...but I thought...”  
“You are more than welcome to visit, should you get a break from your research.”  
“Yeah – yeah, I will! Listen, you'll never guess what I discovered this morning...” He catches Hermann's arm, a familiar gesture now but one that would never have happened before those final days. Hermann allows himself to be led towards the workbench, listening to Newton's frantic explanations.

*

Hermann leaves on a Thursday morning, and almost nothing is said of it. After all, who is left to miss him? Pentecost is gone, Mako and Raleigh are taking a well deserved break somewhere far away from everything, and Herc left the base the day after the war clock was stopped. Newton doesn't miss him at first, barely notices the lack of that small space of silence that had bubbled up into his brain the day they'd first linked together.

Others leave and the base is dismantled around those left behind, until finally, they come for the laboratory. “Dr. Geiszler?” There's no response, just some awful squelching sounds. The young woman steps further into the lab. “Dr. Geiszler, is that -” She turns a corner and spots him – shirtless, back covered with brightly-coloured kaiju, up to his elbows in gore. “What?” he snaps. “I'm working here!”  
“Dr. Geiszler,” she says a third time, and this time there is an air of finality about it. “You've been decommissioned. You need to leave.”  
“I -”  
“Now.” Her voice is sharp, commanding – she has heard enough arguments this morning, enough pleas for time, for funding, and she does not want to hear any more. She turns her back on the wordless shouts erupting behind her and the sounds of splattering on the walls.


	2. Chapter 2

Hermann boards the plane with just a brief glance behind him, looking forward to being able to live somewhere that doesn't irritate his leg quite so much. Oxford is flat, easy to walk through, and home to the research institution he's been invited to work at. The further he flies, the less restless he feels and the more he wonders whether he should have left a note. All thoughts fly from him when he reaches London, however – it's neon lights too bright, it's screeching horns too loud. He is reminded for a moment of Dr. Geiszler, but it is a brief moment and one he does not relish. He hails a taxi to the station, closing his eyes and focusing on keeping out the sound.

It is sunset by the time he pulls into Oxford, and he decides on impulse to walk rather than catch a taxi. The spires burn, sparks catching on their corners, setting the city ablaze before him. It's a relief after being aboard the base for so long, all steel and grey, and he takes his time walking towards the address given to him.

*

Newton jumps on the first plane available with nothing but the clothes on his back and a spare pair of glasses in his pocket. His mind works through a hundred thousand possibilities, racing at break-neck speed through the pros and cons of place after place. Sydney, he thinks, to study in peace. Or perhaps Hawaii, to trawl the seabed. He avoids thoughts of England.

The flight is long, and he can feel himself fidgeting – a leg tapping here, a finger scratching his jawline. He's aware of the annoyance of the man beside him, but try as he might he can't fight it. Thoughts tear loose and echo around his mind _he left you he left you behind stop thinking of don't follow he said you could visit but visit not live that means you have to live somewhere else that's not next to him but if you're not next to him then you're like this but I'm always like this I'm used to this what's wrong with this nothing's wrong with_ as his hand shakes and he feels blood on his lips, the sharp metallic tang drawing him out of his thoughts and up into the bathroom where he wipes away the blood from his nose, and stares into the bloodshot eyes of his reflection. _Fuck_ , he thinks.

*

Months fly by and Hermann tells himself daily that he is content. Oxford is a beautiful city, he thinks, a beautiful, flat, quiet city and he is lucky to work here. Those he works with are geniuses, those he teaches willing to learn, and his work has meaning – modelling aspects of the breach that may allow it to be rebuilt, applied as a transport system. He could take people to the stars, he thinks, build tunnels through space that would allow humanity to spread out, to give this fragile peace some space to breathe.

He is lying to himself, he knows it. He is not happy – something isn't right, like a misplaced number in a formula, but he cannot for the life of him work out what. There's just a feeling of wrongness pressing inwards, causing his leg to ache and his perfectly clear mind to cloud, and for once, the genius is stumped.

*

No-one will hire him. Oh, they love the name, they love the research, but the moment they meet him all interest vanishes. At first he thinks it's the tattoos and covers them but the rejections keep on coming and he can't work out why. Soon he's eating cereal in a flat with no power, his laptop humming on battery alone on the nights he can afford a decent cup of coffee some place with power sockets.

There is so much time, he thinks to himself. What are you meant to do with so much time? There's no deadlines, no certain death breathing down the back of your neck, it's scythe inches from your throat. He paces. He does that a lot now – so much that the couple who live below him leave passive aggressive notes that make him want to put on his boots as he does it. But it doesn't stop – the steady stream of thoughts whirring like gears in his head just flows on, unyielding as the sea. The topic varies widely of course – on good days it's theories the likes of which he knows have never graced the page before, on bad days it's thoughts of uselessness, of being kicked aside like a broken down Jaeger. Except they can use them for scraps, but what is he good for? He'd retreat into that small spot of silence, except it's not there any more, _can't be there any more because Hermann didn't want to stay, and if even Hermann doesn't want him around then what use is he_?

These are the days the neighbours complain the most, the days filled with breaking noises and endless words spilling down from above.


	3. Chapter 3

Hermann stares at the blackboard, his gaze sweeping over the numbers, the symbols chalked on there. Something is missing, he realises, but he can't quite see it.  
“Dr. Gottlieb!” He turns around, ready to snap when he sees one of his research assistants standing meekly behind his desk, phone in hand. “It's for you.” He reaches over, ignoring the slight tremble that seems to be afflicting his hand.  
“Hello?”  
“Hermann?” The voice is higher than he expected – feminine. It takes a moment for him to recognise it as Mako, and he fumbles for words as he does so. Luckily, she's always been one of the few people to understand him, and she carries right on. “How are you?”  
“Good,” he says, forcing distractions out of his mind. It was nonsense, thinking it would be anyone in particular. Nonsense. “I'm working on some absolutely fascinating models at the moment...”

They talk for a while, and it's comfortable – familiar. And then Mako asks the question he's been hoping she wouldn't think of.  
“How's Newton?”  
“Ah, you would have to ask Dr. Geiszler that for yourself, I'm afraid. I haven't seen him since I left Hong Kong.”  
“Oh,” she says quietly. “I'm sorry, I just thought...”  
“It's quite alright, my dear, unfortunately the kaiju were the one research area we had in common, and Oxford seems like a lovely change...on that note you'll have to visit, I do believe that you will love it here...” The awkwardness fades once more, and Hermann almost forgets the shaking in his hand. Eventually, they find themselves winding down, exchange email addresses, dates when he won't be lecturing, and say goodbye. He puts the phone down and stares at his hand, white knuckled and grasping the desk. “Come on now, old chap,” he mutters to himself. “Back to work."

It's a few hours later and the blackboard has been wiped clean so many times that chalk has built up in the corners he'd missed – number after number, symbol after symbol. It shouldn't be this hard, he knows, but every time he reaches for the numbers they slip through his fingers like water. He mutters to himself, the cane wobbling beneath his hand as he paces, occasionally scribbling fragments of thought down only to erase them once more. His mind wanders – _since when does his mind wander?_ \- always returning to the same image, the same fateful day. The day the world almost ended. It didn't, he reminds himself and picks up a fresh piece of chalk only to place it back down and start walking towards the door. Fresh air, he thinks, nothing a good bit of fresh air can't solve.

And so Hermann walks the streets of Oxford – something he's found himself doing more and more recently – his cane clicking against the cobbles. He can feel his mind clearing, thoughts of that day receding and being replaced by balanced formulas, simple numbers and clean white strokes of chalk. It had been foolish of him to get so worked up over a phone call, and it would be lovely to see Mako again.

He is happy here, he tells himself. He is very, very happy.


	4. Chapter 4

Rockstars are meant to die at 27, right? But Newton's well well past that, been past it for a while now and anyway he figured he'd get some glorious death bringing down a kaiju or two but the war is over and what do you do when you're still alive? He's not entirely sure of the last time he ate, but he's pretty sure it wasn't today and the pain in his stomach distracts him from the pain in his head and _fuck why can't you keep your mind off it, Newton, it's like picking old scabs it's disgusting but it's just there and don't call don't call hell, man you don't even have a number for him anyway can't be that hard right I mean he's pretty much got to be at one of the top couple of universities and it's not like he's got a common name and don't call don't call dammit_ he picks up his laptop and heads out.

There's enough money left in his pocket for a coffee (black) though heaven knows he doesn't need the caffeine – his legs twitching, and he tap-tap-taps the table as he waits for his laptop to start up. Nothing's quick enough these days, there's no urgency left. People stroll, cars queue and his coffee burns his tongue when he tries it. It takes two attempts to connect to the internet, and his skin feels like static by the end of it. Broad searches first, he thinks, and simply types in Hermann's name.

There's various news reports, a couple of pictures – just a single one of the two of them, celebrating and there's a twinge in his chest, in his head, missing those days where everything was so simple and there was a deadline. Still, it's easy enough to find him in the end – working in Oxford, at a newly launched institution researching the possibility of replicating the breach on a smaller scale. There's even a contact number. It's not like Newton has a phone these days but the staff here feel sorry for him and when he asks if he can use their phone, of course they say yes. It rings once, twice and it won't hurry up, what with the ring bouncing back and forth between his ears and then there's a voice.

“Hello?”

It's not his voice though – stupid to think it'd be his voice, of course, he's so important it's probably one of his many research assistants.

“Hello?”

Newton's mouth opens, closes, and his hands wave. It was always hard to make his point with just words – he relies on hands, gesturing, pointing, and anyway, what is there to say?

“Is anyone there?”

He hangs up, and feels the now-familiar trickle of blood start from his nose. It's the third shirt he'll have ruined this month but he can't find the time to care any more, simply wipes a hand over it and heads back to his table, sipping the coffee until his mouth goes numb from the heat, wishing the rest of him would just shut up and do the same.


	5. Chapter 5

It's not like him to be so worried every time the phone rings. It must be the after-effects of the drift, he thinks, remembering the dreadful, all-encompassing anxiety that the link had brought with it. “Who was that?” he asks, as casually as he can muster.  
“Wrong number.” The girl smiles tightly at him, and he knows his time here is running short. He might be respected for his work, but there have been whispers in the break room. He's too argumentative with them, too bitter and cynical about the Breach. But no, he hadn't signed up for this. He'd agreed to work on a space-time version only – and here they were talking about linking up to other universes! How quickly humanity forgets, he thinks to himself. It was just months ago they were cowering in fear of the kaiju, and here they are practically trying to find them!

Months, he thinks, his mind suddenly getting stuck on the word they way it sometimes did with certain numbers. Months, and still not a word from that eccentric colleague of his. It wasn't a surprise, he told himself. After all, they hardly would have chosen to work together – they even ended up drawing a line down the centre of their laboratory. Why would he come and visit now? He was probably teaching somewhere like MIT – back in America, all big and brash and loud, just like him.

He doesn't miss him, Hermann thinks. Not one bit.

Still, there were few people these days who understood his refusal to research certain areas, and Dr. Geiszler would almost certainly be one of them. Excusing himself, he heads to his office and boots up his computer. It's an ancient thing, a reflection of the shrinking budget the institution has. No results mean no money, and no money – well, that tends to lead to no results. He's seen this too many times to have any sense of optimism about it. Either they get the breakthrough the university wants (and he's not helping them with that, not a chance), or they get forcibly retired.

He types in his username and password, and waits for it to connect. This time it's quicker, and within a few minutes he's able to search for Dr. Geiszler's name. To his surprise, there's nothing featuring it within the past couple of months. There's some photos, some research papers published during the war and then everything just stops. Oh, a few conspiracy fans have written things here and there, assuming his public disappearance is all some huge lie, but Hermann knows better. Dr. Geiszler was never one to simply stop talking, after all.

It's with this in mind that he finds himself calling Mako, needing to hear from someone familiar. She answers with a smile in her voice, and they talk for a while about various crew members and what they're working on, until Hermann manages to ask the question.  
“Any news from Dr. Geiszler recently?”  
“I was about to ask you the same thing. Have you two not spoken recently?” He considers lying, and wonders why he would do that.  
“I must admit, I still haven't been in contact with him.”  
“Hm,” she says, and for once her meaning eludes him.  
“You?” he asks hopefully, after a long pause. “I haven't heard anything and...” He can hear the voice of a man, muffled in the background. “Neither has Raleigh.”  
Once again, there is a long, drawn-out silence, and Hermann finds his mind flitting back to that day – the day the apocalypse seemed to have come for him.  
“Well,” Mako says brightly, “I'll see if I can track him down. Shall I get him to call you?”  
“Please do.”  
“Worried, are we?” she needles, and it brings a wry smile to Hermann's face. She always did like to tease him about not being the uncaring robot others thought him. It drops again as he realises she's right.  
“Somewhat, my dear. I shall do my best to find him on this side of things as well.”

It's only after they hang up that Hermann realises his mind is still stuck on that day. He wishes there was something to take him away from the quiet, the crushing, smothering silence that allowed itself to get caught in that way. It's only when he tastes the blood on his lips does he realise his nose his bleeding.


	6. Chapter 6

Newton manages to sleep every now and then – and by manages, it's really a crash of all systems down, eyes too heavy to hold up, body too weary to stay awake any longer than it has. He's pretty sure his record is five days but that last day he wasn't really there (and hell, it was wonderful, his mind too tired even to think) and that time even the dreams didn't make it through.

The dreams. Newton lives in fear of dreaming these days, almost as much as he fears the unending flow of thought when he's awake. It's always so cold and there's so much pain, all fighting and tearing in open oceans, deep and dark and the water rushes over him until he can't breathe any more and he claws his way to the surface, waking with blood on pillowcase and a throbbing in his eye.

But not tonight. Tonight the dreams differ – tonight there is shouting, shouting at a board of men that Newton doesn't recognise in a place he's never been. The shouting though, oh that's a voice Newton knows and it makes his head hurt every time he hears it. The words are hard to understand, the thoughts blurry but there's fear – an overwhelming sense of fear choking him and squeezing the air out of his lungs, images of that dreadful neural drift washing and fading with each beat of the heart – and it's not his heart that's speeding up, not his mind desperately trying to fill itself with something new, something to replace that image.

He wakes with a start, and once again there's the taste of metal in his mouth. He barely notices it these days, begins the routine of cleaning his face and the pillow, pacing anxiously round the room. _Hermann_ , he thinks, _did I really see him if I see him does that mean he can see me oh dammit he can't have seen me not like this he can't be right not this one time he's never right no idiot he's always right he was right about the triple event why wouldn't he be right about you you know he thinks you were always doomed to failure no he doesn't no he doesn't Newton you were in his mind you know what he says isn't what he stop thinking stop thinking what if he can hear you?_

He stands up, and almost falls, his leg giving way beneath him. It's over in a second and then he's bounding around the room, throwing clothes all over the floor trying to find his one good suit. There's some bloodstains on the collar but it's black and it hardly shows and besides what else does he have? He put it on quickly, staring at himself in the bathroom mirror and wondering whether the lack of sleep shows. _I'll show them_ , he thinks to himself, _I'm a fucking rockstar_.


	7. Chapter 7

Hermann storms out of the board room as fast as he can manage, muttering under his breath. “Stupid, good for nothing, moronic...” The receptionist turns and looks at him, and he tosses his keys onto the desk. “I'm leaving!” he announces to anyone who is listening. “You and your damnable obsession with the anteverse!”

It's only when he's out of the building, down the streets and heading along the river that he allows himself to sink down onto a bench. His leg aches in a way it hasn't ached in so long, and his head almost matches. So much for noble goals of space bridges and a universe dawning on a bright new day. No, the only funding they could get was private, so the only goals they had were private. And exploring the anteverse seemed surprisingly high on the lists of some companies who'd had buildings destroyed by monsters from that very place.

He leans forward, allowing himself to rely on his cane only after checking no-one was around to see him. His house, his life here – all of it was reliant on his research. Without that he'd need to find something else to do, somewhere else to go. It would be easy enough, he knew that – with the research he had under his name he could guarantee himself a job. But for how long? Once they knew him – the real him, the him that picked others apart til they bled – it'd be the same situation all over again. They weren't Newton, he caught himself thinking. No-one was Newton, willing to fire back barbs equally cruel and yet never touching on the things that stung too deeply. Resolved, he began the walk home.

Once there, he checked his recent email – some conference invites, a couple of press requests and one of the updates he'd been getting from Mako every few days. He opened that one first, and it was exactly what he'd expected.

_Hermann,_  
 _Still no sign. Any news on your end? I got in contact with Herc and he's heard nothing either. Keep in touch._  
 _Mako_

So, she still hadn't found him. Hermann picked up his phone and began to dial. He had a list of hundreds of contacts in his pocket, an academic network spread worldwide. They may not like him, but most of them owed him a favour – some last minute editing here, a recommendation there – and it was time to call it in. He started locally, asking whether any of them had had a certain Dr. Geiszler applying to work with them. Eventually, as his search widened to countries he'd never even visited, he began to have some luck. A sighting here, a job application there – once, even a trial lecture, which, of course, he failed. But no-one had seen him since that first initial push. It didn't matter, Hermann thought. He gave them his email, told them to forward him a copy of Dr. Geiszler's resume, and hung up. Resumes may not contain that much information, but he'd predicted the kaiju patterns with less data. Finding Newton would be easier than that.

He goes through the resumes, pulling out addresses, references, phone numbers and date of application. A pattern begins to form on his screen, and he starts to be able to follow the paths Newton had taken. The fact that he never sets foot in England doesn't escape him, but he pushes it out of mind and keeps inputting the data. Within a week, he's got a theory. And it turns out, so has Mako.

_Hermann,_  
 _I think we've found him. Well, nearly. One of the guys I worked with on the restoration program mentioned a temporary lecturer turning up in town a few days ago and some spare parts going missing shortly afterwards. He didn't see him but one of his students said the guy had some 'crazy tattoos'. There's a few cases in a similar area – think it's him?_  
 _Mako_

It meshes perfectly with Hermann's data – a pattern crossing from continent to continent, leaving him somewhere on the West Coast. With the additional data from Mako's contact, he's convinced he's narrowed it down to within a few cities.

_Mako,_  
 _I agree. It corresponds perfectly with my model of his movements over the past few months. I've narrowed it down to a number of cities and I'm going to fly over myself to see if I can do some more digging. Care to join me, my dear?_  
 _Hermann_

The response is quick, echoing and feeding the worry he's felt for some time now.

_Book your flights and let me know. Mako._

If she's concerned, then it's perfectly acceptable for him to be, Hermann thinks as he looks for the first available flight over. He doesn't think of that oft-remembered drift. No, he doesn't think of it at all.


	8. Chapter 8

Once again, his dreams are nothing but pain and deep dark waters. There's a fear overlaying it though, one that feels closer to his own. He tosses and turns and wakes, clawing at his own skin as though to peel their image from him. _Today_ , he thinks. _It has to be today because dammit I don't know if I can do this for much longer so what if it's not been tested I didn't test the thing last time and yeah it hurt but I'm still here like this though that's why you're..._ He focuses on the feeling on his nails in his palm, concentrating, trying to keep his thoughts in line. _It'll work_ , he repeats to himself. _It has to_.

It takes a few hours to set up and his head feels fit to burst with the clicking of metal and the scraping of parts and the tick-tick-tick of the clock on the wall and that's just outside. Inside it's worse, a mix of buzzing agitation and echoes of the ocean with single thread of silence running through it just beyond his reach. His nose has been dripping with blood on and off all morning but he just plugs it up with tissue and hopes it doesn't get on any of the delicate parts. The closer he gets to finalising the set up, the more that thread of silence seems to grow, and it spurs him on, convinced he's onto something. He knew he was, of course, he's a genius, but it's useful to have confirmation before he sticks something else rigged out of garbage on his head.

He pulls up a chair – cheap, plastic, shifting under his weight, and sits down. He probably doesn't need to record what he's doing this time, but it wouldn't feel like science if he didn't so he pulls out the run-down recorder and starts to talk. It's all ramble, scratching against the itch of fear at the back of his mind but he can feel the quiet already and so he talks and talks, his finger on the button. “Tinfoil Hat, experiment one and yes, I know it's not the best name but that's the goal – block out the thoughts and leave me the way I was before the drift. Which I'm sure some of you that might come across this – Hermann – might argue isn't great but anyway who am I even kidding you're not going to listen to this so you know what, fuck this, experiment one starting in three...two...one...” He presses down, and it's different to the drift. It's inorganic, a simple machine really, like a white noise generator for the brain. It washes over him, lulling the thoughts into a silence he seems to remember but cannot pinpoint where from. It goes on, and on, like waves crashing on the beach and there is nothing, no pain, no sound, and this is bliss, he thinks, and it's like a ripple in a still still pond, fading and fading and...

Hours later, someone knocks on the door. There is no answer. The knocking becomes a pounding, first the sound of a fist, then the sound of a cane – and then the sound of two separate knocks in unison. Newton doesn't hear them – he doesn't hear anything, slumped as he is in the cheap plastic chair, eyes glazed over as though in a trance.

“Are you sure it's here?” Mako asks. “I was. I...well, I'm sure I don't need to explain to you the concept of ghost-drifting.” She nods almost imperceptibly, motioning him to go on. “Up until this morning, I could feel a, ah, buzzing in the back of my skull – that's what Dr. Geiszler's mind feels like. It wasn't really there whilst I was in Oxford, but ever since we've landed I've felt it. I'm not getting it any more, but all of my data points to this. The building's owner even confirmed it.”  
“Well then,” Mako says, and glances over the door. It's thin, the hinges already rusting and she looks pointedly at Hermann. “Stand back.”  
It takes a few blows before the hinges break, but Mako is strong and the door falls before her. “After you,” she says, stepping behind him. Hermann walks carefully into the hall, looking around in disgust at the mess.  
“Dr. Geiszler?” he shouts, but hears nothing in response – whether aloud, or inside his mind. The silence is deafening, and he turns the corner into what he assumes to be the main room. There, unmoving in its centre, sits Newton, a strange contraption on his head.

Months of avoiding a certain memory collapse inwards, and suddenly the world is overlaid with another – the day Hermann thought the world had ended. Newton, this one still, the past one shaking, both bleeding and silent. The silence roars in his ears, and he wishes desperately for the noise he'd once hated to take it's place.


	9. Chapter 9

The line between memory and reality blurs, Hermann rushing forwards, tearing the damned machine from Newton's head and shaking him, calling out his name. Only this time, there's no sudden movement – no eyes snapping open, no victorious grin. His head just lolls, his eyes unseeing as Hermann pleads with him to wake up. “Newton? Newt?” He feels a hand on his shoulder, calm and steadying, and looks up into the worried eyes of Mako.

"Let me,” she says, and she hauls Newton to his feet, carrying him over to the couch. It's covered in clothes and coffee stains, but she lays him down before pulling a tissue from her pocket and wiping the blood off his face. Hermann just stares, and she can feel his gaze boring through her. “He's breathing,” she says quietly, turning back towards him. “And his pulse is good. It might...just take a while, that's all.” She can see the whites of his eyes, and tries not to imagine the terror that must be coursing through his veins. There's a fear gnawing in her own chest – memories of Pentecost's explanations of the initial Jaegar program, of seizures and neural overload. But that's not important now, she tells herself. What's important is bringing him back.

“Is he likely to have written down what his plan was?”  
“He always used to record it...liked the sound of his own voice so much that...” Hermann trails off, and notices the device sitting next to the chair. He picks it up, and, after a nod from Mako, presses play.

_“Tinfoil Hat, experiment one and yes, I know it's not the best name but that's the goal – block out the thoughts and leave me the way I was before the drift. Which I'm sure some of you that might come across this – Hermann – might argue isn't great but anyway who am I even kidding you're not going to listen to this so you know what, fuck this, experiment one starting in three...two...one...”_

Mako, tactful as ever, does not draw his attention to the mention of his name. He can't help but notice it, momentarily fixated on the fact that after all this time, Newton still fights with him – even when he's not there. Seconds later, everything else clicks into place.  
“That...that fool!” he shouts. “He's...out of all the moronic things to do...”  
“Hermann,” Mako says, once again her voice grounding him, bringing him back down to the issue at hand. “What has he done?” Just as Hermann starts to explain, there's a groan from the couch and they turn in unison.

“Hey!” Newton says, his voice says bright but backed with confusion. “Who are you?”


	10. Chapter 10

It's all Mako can do not to react, and even she can hear the hesitancy in her own voice as she responds.  
“Dr. Geiszler? My name's Mako – Mako Mori. This is Dr. Hermann Gottlieb, we...” Newton leaps forward, all energy and boundless enthusiasm.  
“Gottlieb?” There's a slight twitch under one of his eyes as he says the name, and he looks momentarily confused. Then he's back, extending one hand in a semblance of a handshake, though a shaky one. “I've read your work – man, you're some kind of genius!” She can see Hermann looking stunned, and eventually Newton drops his hand, the other scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. “Sorry, I bet you get that a lot. Anyway, not that it's not awesome that you're here, but why are you here?”  
“We...” “I mean, you're not here from my parents or something are you? I keep telling them, I don't need to go away some place, I'm going some place – the Pan Pacific Defence Corps, I've always wanted -” Hermann is still silent, his face grim, so Mako steps in.  
“That's who we're with. We're pleased to...um, inform you that we'd be delighted to have you. You just need to pass our medical, and...”  
“Awesome! Oh, man, I just can't believe this – listen, do I need to pack or should I just grab stuff when we're there?” Mako looks around the room and realises it's filled with clues – news reports of his work, a single framed photo of his family, and various other tiny details that might knock him off balance.  
“There's a car waiting outside – just head on down.” He practically skips out of the room, and Hermann turns to her.  
“Mako,” he hisses, and she raises a finger.  
“Call Raleigh and tell him I'll be back on base earlier than I planned.”  
“Why me?” “Because you, Hermann, are in no way fit to deal with this right now.”  
“I'm perfectly fine!” he snaps, and she merely raises her eyebrows and passes him her phone. Trusting him to listen, she follows Newton down the stairs.

She finds him stood next to her car, the driver looking at him with a sense of concern. Being a war hero does have it's perks, she thinks, and then feels guilty as she remembers Hermann's face. Not for everyone, it seems. “So...” she says, wondering what on earth they're supposed to do. “You're Dr. Geiszler.”  
“Please, call me Newt. Only my mother calls me Doctor.” Yes, Mako thinks, I remember. There's a growing sense of horror building up behind her eyes, but she can't pinpoint the cause. She needs Hermann to catch her up – needs to get Newton out of here, into the safety of the medical team.  
“Newt, then. When did you apply to the PPDC?” It's there again – the twitch, the flinch, the momentary lapse in speech.  
“I...um...you know, I can't remember! Wasn't that long ago – and then about a week later I went over to one of their bases. Met a guy, what’s his name, Pentecost or something – big guy, British, no nonsense sort. Wasn't sure he'd taken to me at first but then again no-one else has been studying the kaiju like I have!” Mako pushes aside the pain in her chest, forcing her face to remain blank. She couldn't afford to give anything away – not until they had a better idea of just what was going on. “Can I let you in on a secret?” Newton asks, and she smiles encouragingly. “I am so, so excited to be working with Gottlieb – do you know he was one of the first people to start asking the right questions? Other than me, of course. What am I saying, of course you know – you hired him!” She can't help but look back at the door. Come on, Hermann, she thinks, come on.

Hermann, meanwhile, has finished his phone-call to Raleigh – it was short, explaining nothing – and is focusing on controlling the tremble in his hands. He legs feel as though they ought to be buckling underneath him, and for the first time he finds himself grateful of his cane. He looks around the room, his eyes roving for something to distract himself with, but no matter where he looks it's there, stalking at the edge of his vision – the machine. It's as though someone has poured ice in his veins, and there's no reason, he tells himself, no reason at all to be this terrified. He wasn't even this scared of the kaiju. But there's a hollow space in the back of his skull and the more he thinks about it, the more blood comes leaking out of his nose, the heat and the taste startling him back into reality. He's not sure he can face what waits for him at the bottom of the stairs – not sure that he has the strength or the kindness of Mako – but he knows he has to face it anyway. If Newton could look a kaiju in the eye and drift with it, then he can look at Newton and deal with whatever is to come. He has to.


	11. Chapter 11

Hermann shuffles awkwardly into the car beside Mako, sitting opposite Newton. He's rambling on about some professor of his, whilst Mako smiles encouragingly. She turns her phone towards him until he can see the text on it's screen – _keep him watching you_. Newton's story runs out of steam and Hermann grips the top of his cane tightly.  
“So,” he says, wondering what Mako's plan is and desperately trying to think back to what Newton had worked on before they first met. “I read your paper on the hypothesised links between Trespasser and examples of earth biology?”  
“Did you?” Newton almost squeals, and Hermann nearly flinches at the excitement in his voice. There's still a hole in his head, still a strange lack of familiarly in Newton's eyes, and his mind is threatening to latch onto the feeling that filled his chest when he found Newton lying still on the floor. He nods, offers a tight smile and starts to ask questions he remembers first asking almost a decade ago.

Text flies beneath Mako's finger tips as she co-ordinates their next steps. A few short messages to the medical team, briefly informing them of Newton's condition, are the first to go. The next messages are for Tendo, because she knows that if Tendo knows, the whole base will follow. One to Marshal Hansen (still saved as Herc in her contact list, because there's only the one Marshal that matters to her), and finally, a longer, slower conversation with Raleigh.

_“Newton's done something.”_   
_“What?”_   
_“We're not sure. But he can't remember anything from the PPDC.”_   
_“Mako – what about his tattoos?”_   
_“Keeping him distracted from them as best I can.”_   
_“He's going to freak out when he notices them.”_   
_“I know. We'll deal with it when it happens.”_   
_“What time are you due on base?”_   
_“Two, three hours?”_   
_“I'll be waiting. Good luck.”_   
_“Thanks. Make sure everything's sorted at that end.”_   
_“Will do.”_

Then, when she's sure all the relevant people have been notified, she tunes back in to the conversation unfolding around her. Hermann's knuckles are white, the cane vibrating almost as much as Newton, and he's trying his best to talk about dated research. She lightly places a hand on his, and smiles at him.  
“Now, Newton, I think you might be tiring Dr. Gottlieb out.” She can feel Hermann's grip relax slightly, and she turns her phone to him once again. _Tattoos_ , it says, and dread pours into his veins, his lungs, threatening to choke him. _Of course_ , he realises. _He won't remember the tattoos. No wonder she insisted on keeping his eyes on me_.

That's all it takes to stifle the fear gripping him, all it takes to regain absolute order in his mind.  
“It's fine, Mako,” he says, and in that brief sentence she understands. “I'm very interested in what my soon to be colleague has to say.” Newton – as usual – misses all the nuance, and merely grins at them.  
“No, I know biology can get a bit boring – come on then, Hermann, let's hear about what you're working on then.”  
“It's Dr. Gottlieb,” Hermann responds, unthinkingly, but he answers nonetheless.

The journey is long, and Mako is on edge the entire time fielding phone calls and messages. Hermann talks – and talks, and talks. He can't remember ever having talked so much with Newton, usually he just listened, the waves of words crashing over him. Now he steers the conversation, guides it, avoiding collisions with facts he shouldn't know, thoughts he can't have. He only stops as they pull into the base, and that's to look to Mako for instruction.  
“We're here? Awesome! I didn't realise they had bases this far in land though.”  
“This is the only one,” Mako says, thinking quickly. “Top secret.”

They're met by a team of doctors, nurses, psychiatrists and Tendo. Raleigh catches her eye from the door, but stays back, keeping the onlookers at bay. “Mako,” Tendo says tersely, and she nods. His eyes flicker to Newton's arms, and she widens her eyes slightly, shaking her head. She can see the way he swears inwardly, and then they're being led through the building, past the growing crowd of watchers, the only voice Newton's as he revels in this new world.

They reach the medical section safely and Newton is put through for tests, leaving Hermann, Raleigh, Mako and Tendo outside in the corridor.  
“What the hell?” Raleigh hisses, and Mako shrugs.  
“We just found him that way.” Tendo tugs nervously at his braces.  
“And he's got no clue something is off?”  
“No, I thought it was better to wait on that until we found out what caused it. Maybe it's temporary.”  
“Maybe what's temporary?” Tendo asks, and Hermann interjects before Mako can speak.  
“He built another blasted contraption and plugged himself into it. I've been thinking on the way over and theoretically, it shouldn't be permanent. Our minds aren't like paper, where you can erase things and write over. They're more like computers – you can try and overwrite the data, but there's almost always fragments left over, you just need to know how to pull them back.”  
Raleigh looks blank, but the other two begin talking excitedly. Hermann allows himself to feel hope – hope that his theory is correct, that they can find Newton again – not this Newton, but _his_ Newton.


	12. Chapter 12

The next few hours are tense, and the four of them wait in one of the offices, prepared to jump in if they hear sign of Newton noticing something is wrong before his evaluations are finished.  
“Lucky he has such an awful attention span,” Tendo says, attempting to lighten the mood. No-one laughs. It's just another reminder that though the world seems to have moved on, it's without them. Who has space for the bitterness hidden in their hearts – for Hermann's refusal to research certain areas, for Tendo's refusal to work on privately owned Jaegars? There's a part of each of them longing for what Newton seems to have given himself – a new lease on life, a chance to look at the world with fresh eyes. Mako leans across and places a hand on Hermann's, and he acknowledges it with a nod.  
“It'll be okay,” she says, her voice steady. She reminds him of Pentecost, sometimes – sharing his innate ability to be the eye of the storm, a point of calm they can all depend on.

It's inevitable, really, that the peace would be shattered. They need a blood sample, and of course, it's Newton, so he looks down at the needle. The screaming can be heard throughout the wing and Hermann is the first to reach the room. He slams the door open, wielding his cane like a sword.  
“You imbeciles!” he shouts as the staff run past him, “Honestly, I don't know why I expected anything better.”  
Mako and Raleigh arrive shortly after, and they can all hear Tendo berating the staff in the corridor.Newton is backed into the corner, a chair turned over in front of him and his glasses smashed on the floor across the room.  
“No,” he half moans, half-shrieks, clawing at his arms in horror. “What have you done? _What is this_?” Mako staff attempts to get closer, and Newton only backs further into the wall before snatching a clipboard off the wall and flinging it towards her. She catches it with ease but Raleigh is already darting forward, fists up. Then he finds himself blocked by a cane against his stomach, and a single, quiet word.  
“Stop.”

Hermann may be shaking from the strain of running, and his voice is cracking, but there's a defiance about him that makes everyone in the room fall silent.  
“Everyone out.” No-one moves and Hermann brings his cane down to the floor with a click so loud everyone but him jumps at the noise. Then Mako catches his eye and bobs her head slightly, before taking hold of Raleigh's hand and leading him to the exit. The nurses file out in confusion, and it's only when they leave does Hermann allow himself to sag forward, resting his weight on his cane.

He takes a single step forward.

“Dr. Geiszler,” he says, softly, and gets only a ugly, choking sob in response. “Pick up the chair, sit down and we'll talk.”  
“Go away!” Newton shouts, and Hermann takes a step backwards again. Then, thoughtfully, he walks over to the glasses on the floor and picks them up, brushing away the shards from the smashed lense.  
“I won't come any nearer,” he says, pulling up a chair of his own and sitting down. “Let me know when you're ready.”

No-one moves for a while. Mako holds herself on tiptoe outside the window, occasionally reporting back to Tendo and Raleigh who wait nervously behind her. Newton sinks slowly down the wall, eventually ending up head in hands at the bottom, refusing to look at his own skin. Hermann stays seated, both hands resting on his cane, every part of him resisting the urge to flee. _I should have contacted him first_ , he thinks. _I've been inside his head, I should have known_. Still, now is not the time for regrets, so he pushes the thoughts away and keeps his eyes on Newton.

Eventually Newton stands up, picks up the chair, and sits back down. He stares at the floor, legs bouncing up and down, hands tugging and pulling at his hair, his sleeves, his collar. He's a mass of energy, and Hermann can't help but be drawn into his orbit.  
“Dr. Geiszler,” he says, and though Newton doesn't look up, he doesn't tell him to go away either. “The tattoos you can see on your arm represent over a decade of work. A decade you...something has caused you to forget. We want to help you.”  
“Why?”  
“Because...” Hermann stops, and realises he's tapping the cane in time with Newton's feet. “Because we're your friends.”


	13. Chapter 13

Hermann's leg aches from remaining seated in the unforgiving plastic chair, but he stays upright, eyes never leaving Newton. The man is still rubbing at his arms, though the bleeding is stopped and he doesn't seem to be scratching. “Shit, man,” he says, his whole body shaking. “It's just like – I don't remember myself, y'know? I don't remember these arms, I don't even know who this one is!” Hermann smiles fondly.  
“It's called Yamarashi.” Newton looks up, and their eyes meet for a second.  
“Dr. Gottlieb,” he says, and something in Hermann twists at the sound of his name. “How long have we been friends?”

  _Newton had bounded into his lab, all limitless energy and charm, and greeted him with a winning smile. “Hermann Gottlieb, right? Man, you're some kind of genius. I can't wait to work with you – finally, someone asking the right sort of questions!”_  
“ _And you are?” Newton's face had fallen, just briefly, but the smile had bounced right back as he extended his hand._  
“ _Newton Geiszler,” he had responded, eventually drawing his hand back out of awkwardness. “I'm a biologist.”_  
“ _Oh, yes,” Hermann said, distractedly. “You worked out a couple of the kaiju weak points, right?”_  
“ _Yes! Listen, I was thinking, we should get to know each other if we're gonna be cooped up in this lab together – how'd you fancy...”_  
“ _Please understand, Dr. Geiszler -”_  
“ _Newt.”_  
“ _Dr Geiszler, that I am not being rude, I simply don't associate outside of work with my colleagues.”  
“Oh. Okay. Well, I'll just – I'll just go set up my side of the lab then.”_

 Hermann wants to lie, but he can feel the bite of truth on his tongue. “Not...not for the full decade,” he manages. “But, for some time.”

_Hermann wasn't sure about when antagonism and apparent dislike had turned into trust and reliance – he was simply sure that it had. Maybe it was they day that he'd noticed Newton walked slower when he was around, or maybe it was when everyone else had left, leaving them the last men standing. Whatever the cause, it was something Hermann had never expected. He kept to his policy – associating with Newton only whilst in the labs. Of course, given they spent nearly twenty hours out of every twenty four in there, the distinction had ceased to matter._

“Oh,” Newton says, looking distant for a moment. “I guess...I'm sorry?” he says, seeking out some response in Hermann's face. “For...y'know. Whatever happened.” Hermann wants to reach out to him, to tell him that it's not his fault – even though it is, even though he's the one that built that awful machine, the one who plugged himself in without a second thought, the one who...  
“It's fine,” he says, his voice breaking as he does so. “It's fine.”

_He could pinpoint the day trust and reliance had become something more – turned into friendship. It was a day marked by fear, and -_

His mind recoiled, tried to retreat into a buzzing that was no longer there, finding only science and thoughts of blood.

_\- Newton, lying seizing on the ground. Hermann hadn't thought, hadn't taken the idea seriously enough to realise that Newton would bet his life on it. There'd been a long, heart-wrenching moment of stillness and then he'd gasped, woken in his arms, the gleam of victory in his eye. Hermann had ran as best he could, forcing his leg to obey his commands, ignoring the pain running up and through his veins.  
He'd never meant to argue, never meant to shout at him, but fear became anger and he needed someone, something to blame, and as Pentecost walked away, he realised why. Newton, irritating, shrill, brilliant Newton, was the only person who had ever treated him as though he mattered._

_It was only later when he realises that Newton thought the same about him._

Hermann sighs. “We...we don't have to fix it,” he says. “If you don't want to – I mean, forgetting the war, forgetting the ten years of...”  
“I get the feeling you're important,” Newton says, a bright smile masking his tear-stained cheeks. “Let's try to fix it, yeah?”  
“Alright,” Hermann says at last. “We'll try.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a while - I have been moving house! But I'm back, so onwards we go...

Tendo quickly finds Newton a room, ordering it stripped bare of anything that he wouldn't recognise. They all agree it's best to play this slow – to introduce the world to Newton gradually, rather than bombarding him with more than ten years of detailed information. Raleigh goes out for a while and comes back with a pile of sweaters, all long sleeved and thick. Newton doesn't say much, but the relief in his eyes is clear. Mako and Hermann, meanwhile are left puzzling over just how to start fixing things. 

“So you think it's all still there, just hidden?” she asks, leaning forwards over the thin table between them.  
“Most probably. I can still feel...something in the back of my head. It's unfamiliar, but it definitely exists. Not like...” _Not like the emptiness of the day we found him_ , he thinks, but doesn't say it. Mako knows anyway.  
“Well that's good,” she says, and her voice is bright. It's forced, but he appreciates it nonetheless. “Maybe – maybe we can try to bring them back? By showing him things or reminding him of places?”  
“Perhaps,” Hermann says, and Mako leans back, crossing one leg over the other.  
“It'll have to be you.” He looks up, meeting her eyes for the first time.  
“Me?”  
“You're the one who knows him best.” He tries to think up some convincing argument, but Mako smiles wryly at him. “You were in his head,” she points out and Hermann sighs.  
“I know.”  
“And besides,” she adds, “He wants to remember. That's got to count for something, right?”

 _

Newton sits on the the edge of the slim metal bed, knees bouncing, eyes roaming over every gleaming metal surface. He tugs at the end of the jumper he's wearing, sticking his thumbs through the holes he's already bitten into the cuff. Every inch of him feels like static, as though something is trying to burst through his skin and devour him _and oh god now he knows what prey feels like_. Fingers pick at the edges of the jumper, refusing to reveal the garish images staining his skin, and he can feel his mind clawing at the insides of his skull, flashes of the beasts in steel grey, ocean blue flicker behind his eyes.  
“Hello, Dr. Geiszler.” He looks up to see Dr. Gottlieb leaning on the doorframe. “Mind if I come in?”  
“Yes – I mean, no, please, uh, come in – I, uh, there's a chair at the...”  
“Thank you.” Newton can feel the thrum of tension in the room, can't pinpoint whether it's leaping from him like electricity, conducted by the walls of this small metal box _and it's so small and something is beating on the outside searching for him_ but one look at Gottlieb and he can see the way every muscle is coiled like a spring, dying to flee, and yet...and yet he stays.  
“I don't mind if you want to wait,” he blurts out, and Hermann frowns.  
“Wait?”  
“To talk. Until I'm. Y'know.”  
“Ah,” Hermann says, and there's a hiss and a click as the cane slides across the floor so that he can sit up straighter. “That's rather the problem. You see, Miss Mori seems to believe that I'm your best bet of recovery.”  
“Oh.”  
“I'm afraid her optimism may be misplaced – I have no psychological training or...”  
“Good – it's not like I'm crazy or anything, I'm just missing something up here. Not like that though. That would be crazy. Like, in the whole memory zone not...not anywhere else.” Gottlieb says nothing, and it's a silence Newton knows too well. “I'm not, dude, I swear – I, hell, why am I persuading you, you've worked with me for years, you've probably seen me being...I don't want anyone in my head.” His voice is small, and Hermann remembers the panic – the days of Newton curling up under desks, the weeks of bubbling energy and the following crash. It had taken years for him to find a space he was comfortable with – to discover some semblance of control.  
“I know,” Hermann says, his voice soft. “I...it gets better, Newton.”  
“Does it, man? Because right now my skin is crawling and everything is just that little bit too loud, that little bit too big and you're all telling me that for some strange reason I got these monsters inked over my body and the war that I've seen the start of is over and that we're friends but I don't remember _any_ of it.”  
“Are you sure about that?”  
“Yeah – everything's just...well, no. There's...I remember being scared. I don't know why I just – something big, man, and I remember running and I remember being trapped but I don't know why. I just...it's hard to tell if that's memory or not? I...I'm scared a lot. My heart beats too fast and I can't stop thinking and everything gets too fast and my parents say that's not something that should be happening and I need to work on it but my mind is just that fast, you know? But anyway – this, this dread, it feels different, it feels new so I guess it's a memory? But I, ah...yeah.” 

It's been a long time since Hermann had to deal with this Newton – the Newton wound like a brand-new piece of clockwork with the screws set wrong, the Newton who spoke a hundred miles a minute and thought even faster. It's both familiar and totally alien, and he finds himself leaning backwards, as though increasing the distance will somehow make it easier. He doesn't mention this though. Instead, he stands and offers a hand.  
“Would you like to see around the base?”

 Newton, hands trembling, feet unsteady beneath him, accepts the help, and follows his lead.


End file.
